The GEO Year Book 2004/5 provides a global and regional overview of key environmental events and developments, including those concerned with policy. It is designed to inform the deliberations of the UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF), which takes place in the first quarter of every year, and thereby contribute to the formulation of UNEP's input to the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

The Feature Focus section looks at links between gender, poverty and environment, a key crosscutting issue in the CSD thematic cluster of water, sanitation and human settlements for 2004/5.

Two topics are addressed in detail: how environmental change can trigger the emergence or re-emergence of infectious diseases, demonstrating the role of good environmental management in minimizing adverse trends; and recent evidence of changes in ocean salinity and a step-by-step explanation of why this could have serious consequences. To prepare these two sections, UNEP has worked closely with the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) to select and present important new policy-relevant findings from scientific research. The GEO Indicators chapter draws on the most recent available data to present key pressure, state, impact and response indicators.